


Tale Of The Two Wizards

by roguelightning



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:20:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25134508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguelightning/pseuds/roguelightning
Summary: Helen tells her daughter her favourite story before bed. Any similarities to actual people are not coincidental.
Relationships: Helen Magnus/Nikola Tesla
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	Tale Of The Two Wizards

“Alright, Irene, time to go to bed,” Helen whispered as she kissed her daughter on the forehead.

“I’m not sleepy,” the girl lied, barely holding back a yawn. “Can you tell me a story?” she asked, her eyes pleading, and Helen cursed silently. This would have been a lot easier if Irene didn’t have her father’s eyes. She had spent centuries trying to resist that look coming from Nikola and had failed miserably. Seeing it come from her daughter was ten times worse, though.

“Alright, but you’ll go to bed afterwards,” Helen stated, her tone not one that could be argued with. It seemed like a fair deal to her daughter, however, because she settled herself in her bed, her eyes wide open.

“Tell me the one with the wizards, mum,” she said with a grin and Helen barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes at that. Of course this was the story that ended up being her daughter’s favorite. It wasn’t like she had much of a choice, however.

“Once upon a time, in a faraway land,” Helen started, “lived a powerful wizard. People loved and respected him, because most of the things he had done had proven useful to them. What they didn’t know, however, was that the great wizard was nothing more than a thief.”

“Ass,” Irene cooed happily, causing Helen to glare at her. She made a mental note to have a talk to Nikola later about the words he could use when telling stories to their daughter.

“Thief,” Helen corrected her. “But he had got away with it most of the times. Until one day, when the king of that country discovered a powerful waterfall. A waterfall that had the power to offer endless energy to the one who was able to tame it. So, naturally, the king asked the wizard for his help. And, for the first time in many years, the wizard was powerless. He didn’t know what to do, but he couldn’t give up either. After all, he had a reputation to maintain.”

“What’s a reputation?” Irene asked as she stifled a yawn.

“It means people thought he was a great wizard,” Helen said helpfully. “Actually, he was so well known throughout the world, that tales of his magic had reached the farthest corners of the world.”

“And that’s how a young wizard heard about him,” Irene continued with a grin. Helen nodded at that. “Yes, only he wasn’t a wizard back then, not yet,” she said. “He was just a boy who had heard of the great wizard and wanted nothing more than to meet him. So, one day, he gathered up his courage and went to his father to ask permission to go meet the Wizard of Menlo Park, as the great wizard was called. But the boy’s father was a priest and hated everything that was related to magic. He hoped that his son would follow his footsteps and dedicate his life to God. Magic wasn’t in the cards for the young man.”

“What happened then?” Irene prompted, even if both of them knew she knew the answer to that.

“The boy fell ill,” Helen said, her voice trembling a bit at that. “He was on his deathbed when his father realized that having him alive was more important than anything. So he promised his son that if he got better, he would be allowed to do whatever he wanted.”

“That’s sad,” Irene said. “He should have realized he loved his son before that.”

“That’s true,” Helen said with a sigh. “But sometimes we let ourselves think with our minds and not with our hearts, and it takes a tragedy like that to set us straight,” she continued, a sad smile appearing on her lips. She was talking from experience, but her daughter wasn’t going to find that out until she was older.

“Anyway,” Helen said as she gathered her thoughts, “that was when a miracle happened. The young man got better and his father kept his promise. So he went to see the great wizard and become his apprentice. Problem is, when he got to that far away kingdom, his dreams were shattered. The great wizard was nothing like he imagined. He dreamed of working for a great man, whose imagination knew no boundaries. Instead, he found an old man that had a few good ideas but refused to improve them. However, the great wizard saw the potential of the young boy. And, because he had tried everything with the waterfall and failed, he promised him 50.000 rubies if he succeeded in controlling the waterfall.”

“That’s a lot,” Irene said.

“Yes, but the spell required to control the waterfall was much more complicated that any experimented wizard could handle. But the young wizard refused to give up. He worked day and night and finally managed to invent a spell that could control the waterfall. Pleased with what he had done, he went to the great wizard and asked him for his payment. But the wizard had other plans. He wanted to use the new spell to increase his fame and not pay anything in return. So he laughed in his apprentice’s face, saying that he was too young to get wizard humor.”

“Ass!” This time, Irene almost screamed and she was so determined, that Helen couldn’t help laughing at her. “Alright, I will give you that,” Helen grinned. “He was an ass, but only for this. He got what he deserved in the end, however. You see, the young wizard wasn’t going to give up that easily. So he went to King George and told him all about the spell he created. The king was astonished. How could such a young wizard possess such great power? Impressed with the young wizard, he agreed to be his supporter.”

“What did the people say?”

“The people had already begun talking,” Helen said with a smile. “They loved the young wizard so much that they gave him a nickname as well. The Wizard of The West, they called him, and not few of them wondered if he was going to be able to defeat the Wizard of Menlo Park. And for the first time in many years, the great wizard was afraid. You see, fame was all that mattered to him. He didn’t actually care what happened to the people in the kingdom. He knew the young wizard was more powerful than him and that he couldn’t beat him in a fair battle. So instead, he started showing people how dangerous the young wizard’s spells could be. The great wizard began using them as well, but he corrupted them, turned them into something evil. In his hands, the spells killed animals and people, terrifying anybody who watched.”

“But they weren’t really dangerous, right?” Irene asked, her voice small. She obviously liked the young wizard, so knowing his spells could be evil made her sad.

“Oh, they were,” Helen said as she ruffled her daughter’s hair. “But the thing is, magic has unlimited potential,” she said with a smile. “Most of the times, you cannot judge it as either good or bad. What makes the difference, however, is how people choose to use it. But it is true that most people don’t recognize that. They’re afraid of what they don’t know, and they let that fear rule them, stop them from accepting magic, from embracing it. And this is exactly why the young wizard did what he did. He gathered around all the people in the kingdom and unleashed one of his spells on himself. The crowd froze in fear as a bolt of lightning came from the sky and fell upon the wizard’s body. He knelt to the ground, almost crushed by its force, but when he stood back up, he was unharmed. The only evidence of what had happened was the smoke that was coming out of his clothes.”

“That’s so cool,” Irene whispered reverently, and Helen couldn’t help a smile from forming on her lips. “It was cool, yes,” she agreed. “A bit hot too, to be honest,” she whispered to herself.

“Because the lightning made his clothes burn?” Irene asked, and Helen was barely convincing as she stammered a yes. Her daughter didn’t exactly have vampire hearing, but there were times like these when she got too close to it for her own good.

“The people were mesmerized, of course,” Helen continued, changing the subject back to the story. “They talked about it for days, and it was clear that the age of the Wizard of Menlo Park had ended and a new age had begun. The age of the Wizard of The West.”

“And then he lived happily ever after?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, actually,” Helen said, her voice a bit sad at that. “You see, in the end, people forgot about him. They ended up taking his spells for granted, even forgetting who it was that had created them in the first place.” This made Irene frown and for a second Helen was worried she was going to call someone an ass again.

“Tell me about the nymph, mummy,” she said, her eyes pleading.

“What nymph?”

“When daddy told me this story, there was a nymph in it,” Irene said, a small pout forming on her lips. “I like that version better.”

“Actually,” Nikola said from behind Helen, startling her, “the nymph is the best part of the story,” he continued with a grin. “You see, the people of the kingdom ended up being ungrateful…” he made a small pause there as he saw Helen’s look, “…bastards,” he amended. “So one day, the wizard decided he had had enough of them. But naturally, he couldn’t leave just like that, you see. He had to do it in style. Lucky for him, there was this beautiful nymph that was madly in love with him. Together, they designed the wizard’s last spell, and one cold winter day-“

“Madly in love with him?” Helen cut him off, raising one of her eyebrows at that.

“Well, yes,” Nikola said with a smug grin.

“For the record, at that time the nymph considered him more of a nuisance,” Helen smirked. “A challenging, sometimes cute nuisance, but from that to being madly in love with him… that’s a bit of a stretch.”

“I thought I was the one telling the story,” Nikola said with a pout.

“No, I was, before you decided to fill our daughter’s brain with this nymph nonsense.”

“As I said, that’s the best part,” Nikola said, so much softness in his voice that Helen relented. “Fine, have it your way,” she agreed. “So, they designed one last spell together,” she reminded him.

“Yes, and one cold winter day, as the wizard stood in front of his public for the last time, a huge fire engulfed him. When the flames disappeared, the wizard was nowhere to be seen.”

“But he got away, right?” Irene asked.

“Yes. The nymph took him to her underground kingdom, and they lived happily ever after there,” Nikola said with a smile. “You could almost say she kidnapped him,” he added with a smirk, “but it’s not like he was mad because of this. You see,” he added as he took Helen’s hand in his own, his fingers intertwining with hers, “he had known magic before, but nothing could compare to what he felt when he was with her. She had been the one to grant him immortality, but, more importantly, she had been the only one that had truly understood him.” It was then when he realized that Irene was sound asleep, and he tucked her in, placing a kiss on her nose.

“I did not kidnap you,” Helen whispered, careful not to wake her up. “As a matter of fact, if memory serves, you were the one who stormed in here like you owned the place.”

“Eh, she can have the short version for now,” Nikola shrugged. “I couldn’t think of another way of justifying the time skip, not to mention time travel, not to mention that very nasty thing a certain nymph did in which she pretended to be dead.”

“I thought you were a genius,” Helen said with a smirk.

“With science. Storytelling… that’s another thing.”

“I can see that. How did I end up being a nymph, by the way?”

“It was either that or being a witch,” Nikola shrugged. “Besides, you know, beautiful, protector of animals, not necessarily immortal but having a longer life span than people? It suited you.”

“I suppose it’s not that big of a stretch,” Helen agreed. “Not as big as the one with me being madly in love with you in 1943, at least.”

“How about now?” Nikola asked with a grin. “If I said that you were madly in love with me now, how much of a stretch would that be?”

“You tell me,” she whispered seductively before pressing her lips to his.

**Author's Note:**

> For Teslen Appreciation Week 2020 - day 4, prompt Family.


End file.
